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The Third Annual Mountain Readiness Expo was held at the Van Hoy Campground in Harmony, North Carolina May 2-4 2025. This family friendly event featured a wide array of classes, demonstrations, and vendors all centered around making attendees more prepared to handle emergencies and bring an increased awareness of the importance of self-reliance skills and lifestyle. Beyond the education and gear, the Mountain Readiness Expo also packed in great local food, tent and RV camping, evening entertainment, and most importantly – community!
My wife Robin and I road tripped 700 miles from our home in rural Connecticut to beautiful North Carolina to attend the Expo and we both left with new skills, a great sense of community, and we are already looking forward to next year!
The People Behind the Mountain Readiness Expo
Robert “T” Toombs, Co-Founder of Mountain Readiness
Robert “T” Toombs, life experiences have driven him becoming among the most passionate and dedicated self-reliance enthusiasts I have had the pleasure of knowing. Growing up and moving around rural areas T learned first hand the value of utilizing natural resources and the challenges that come along with it. As an adult T worked his way to becoming a logistics manager for a major company and experienced life in urban environments.
Amber Toombs, Co-Founder of Mountain Readiness
Amber Toombs spent 13 years serving in the United States Army where she deployed to Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She then went worked in law enforcement for 6 years. The yearning for a simpler way of life and a shared passion with her husband T for teaching others the value of preparedness and self-sufficiency led to the founding Rustic Roots Homestead and Mountain Readiness.
Having a diverse skillset and self-reliant living mentality is not enough, you need a community – that is exactly what T and Amber set out to build when they founded Mountain Readiness. Over the past few years the Mountain Readiness Expo has grown thanks to T and Amber's relentless dedication to creating connections, building community, and the desire to share valuable skills with those willing to learn!
Now that we understand the people behind the event, let's take a look at what Mountain Readiness Expo brought to the table in 2025!
Knife forging was one of the many class options at the 2025 Mountain Readiness Expo
Diverse Class Options
Before attending Mountain Readiness Expo, the class and demonstration line-up really drew my attention. The classes covered a wide variety of topics that fell into the many categories including:
- Homesteading
- Primitive Skills
- Wilderness Survival
- Bushcraft
- Self-Defense
- Communications
- Tactics
- Sustainable Living
- Firearms
- Woman's Only Firearms
While each of these topics have more subtopics than anyone could count, bringing a small sampling of all them together in one weekend brings a unique value. For starters it allows attendees to focus on skill areas that interest them most. More importantly this demonstrates how skills across multiple disciplines compliment each other and make us better prepared for the unexpected. While we did not have enough time to participate in everything we got the chance to take some great classes and demonstrations!
Jacks Genega teaching attendees the anatomy and function of a compass.
Land Navigation and Plant Walk with Jacks Genega
Jacks Genega is an experienced wilderness survival expert and owner of Wildcard Wilderness. Her navigation course taught the the anatomy of a compass and detailed the nuances of how to use it and culminated with a real world exercise in using a compass to gain your bearings in the woods.
The plant walk class took participants through the woods to identify and discuss the uses of many of North Carolina's native plants as well as harmful plants to avoid!
Patrick DuBose getting his timber bundle ignited after making a hot coal with a bow drill.
Bow Drill Fire Starting with Patrick DuBose
Patrick Dubose may be young, but his skillset and experience is something that can benefit all ages! His passion for developing, preserving, and teaching ancestral skills should be an inspiration to us all. Patrick demonstrated primitive fire making skills using a bow drill and utilizing natural materials that can be found anywhere.
Rob Schneider demonstrating simple hook creation.
Black Smithing with Heavy Crown Forge and Crafts
Retired Marine, Rob Schneider, began his Black Smithing journey in 2018 and currently works as a hobbyist Black Smith. In addition to creating tools he also strives to pass down blacks smithing skills to those who wish to learn so that this vital art is not lost. Through out the event Rob worked on custom orders as well as ready to buy items and passionately explained his processes and equipment as well as his “hammering home” the importance of preserving the black smithing craft.
The Auxiliary Manufacturing Karl Jr is one of my go to self-defense tools. The Defiant 7 Talos is a new addition that I picked up from USA Made Blade while in North Carolina.
Knife Fighting Basics and Techniques
If you plan on carrying a knife for self-defense having the training and skills to back it up is vital. Two knife fighting classes we offered one to cover the basics and another to go over different knife fighting techniques. While neither course would make a participant a master, these courses provided the basics needed to get started through practical situation demonstrations and covering how to select self-defense knives.
The hands on chicken processing class afforded participants the opportunity to process a chicken from farm to table.
Chicken Health Care and Chicken Processing
Among the many homesteading classes available were courses in chicken care and a course in processing chickens from live birds to ready to cook! The chicken care class covered how to keep chickens and keep them healthy. the Chicken processing course covered everything from the 24 hours before slaughter and how to humanly dispatch your chicken to defeathering and butchering the chicken to maximize useable meat. The chicken processing course afforded class participants the opportunity to do the entire process under supervision of trained experts!
Knife designer, jungle guide, and founder of Bushcraft Global – Joe Flowers
Impromptu Woodsman Skills with Joe Flowers
When jungle guide and knife design legend, Joe Flowers, says “hey do you want to head into the woods and do cool stuff” you don't say no! Joe, Robin, and I headed off to the woods to practice large knife tasks with smaller knives, find water in vines, hunt down naturally occurring fatwood, and learn about assorted plants and insects. Check out our social media profiles for some videos of our woodland fun!
We got to check out the prototype of TOPS Knives Mini Brakimo, designed by Joe Flowers.
This was just a small sampling of the courses available at the Mountain Readiness Expo and even over the course of three days it would be impossible to take all the classes! The instructor line up was incredible, bringing many well known and reputable trainers to the event. Some instructors even offered additional full length classes were also offered at an additional charge in the the few days after the event closed allowing those with a desire to take a deeper dive into specific topics the opportunity to do so. Check out the full list of instructors in attendance.
One of the camping areas near the parade field at Mountain Readiness Expo.
Mountain Readiness Expo Grounds and Amenities
The Mountain Readiness Expo was held at the Van Hoy Camp Ground offering hundreds of acres of fields, woodlands, essential buildings, and plenty of room for camping as well as ample parking for those just coming for the day. The camping option was particularly popular with hundreds of people camping out in RVs, tents, or pop-up campers. Many people camping leads to a ton of campfires and community building after the normal event hours, and the folks at Mountain Readiness ensured there was plenty of after hours activities going on including night vision demos, cookouts, and live music.
Everything from hot food, to ice cream and coffee were available!
There were was a nice variety of local food trucks on site bring some tasty BBQ options, local farm made ice cream, stir fry, tacos, and on-site freshly roasted coffee. If attendees were on the hunt for new gear there were plenty of options to choose from including bushcraft gear, survival equipment, outdoor cooking tools, body armor, and knives of all shapes and sizes. There was also a raffle on Sunday featuring some great gear from vendors, instructors, sponsors.
While the main event was held on the filed the grounds offered hundreds of acres of dense woodland for courses and exploration.
Being an outdoor event the southern sun was more than I have acclimated to being it has been largely cold and gray here in New England, but most of the classes were held in large tents which provide shelter from the sun and were open on both ends to allow the breeze through. Some classes were held in the woods surround the main event area providing a nice reprieve from the sun.
There were ample amounts of porta-potties available around the main area and despite having hundreds of attendees they were kept clean and there was never a long wait to access the facilities.
Having a blast covering the Mountain Readiness Expo with the help of my wife, Robin Italiano.
Final Thoughts
The question a we have been asked by many since returning is “was Mountain Readiness Expo worth the the trip?” we can honestly say, without reservation, it was! Our only regret was that we could not stay longer! If you are into learning new self-reliance skills or getting a fresh take on existing skills, this is the event for you. If you are looking to forge connections and build community with welcoming like minded people this is the event for you!
If you are traveling and want to camp out there is plenty of room and community to do it with! If you wanted to stay indoors there are plenty of nice hotel options just 20 minutes away.
Ultimately if you are a survival, preparedness, and/or survival enthusiast the Mountain Readiness Expo has a lot to offer. There is a wealth of information and classes for beginners and plenty to continue skills development of the seasoned enthusiast. With so much class variety it was nice to dive into topics I passionate about and get out of my comfort zone and learn new skills.
The sense of community that the Toombs family has built was refreshing. Everyone one I encountered was incredible. It didn't matter if you were an enthusiast, the CEO of a company, a well known trainer, or a popular media personality – everyone in attendance was unified with the common goal to learn from others and teach what they know!
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